“Let It Be Morning” begins with a vision of prison bars, which turn out to be the metal on a cage holding wedding doves. Although the first scene is indeed set during nuptial celebrations, it’s an undeniably ominous omen when the door is opened and the birds refuse to fly.
There are, in fact, bars everywhere in Eran Kolirin’s Palestinian drama, though few others are as visible (or unsubtle). His protagonist, Sami (Alex Bakri), is confined by his marriage, his family, his town. Some of these imprisonments, like his unhappy relationship with his sharply intelligent wife (an excellent Juna Suleiman), are at least partially of his own making. Others, like a stubbornly closed checkport to Jerusalem, are not.
Sami’s instinct to escape immediately after his brother’s village wedding is, he insists, purely practical: he’s got to get back to work in the city before he gets fired.
There are, in fact, bars everywhere in Eran Kolirin’s Palestinian drama, though few others are as visible (or unsubtle). His protagonist, Sami (Alex Bakri), is confined by his marriage, his family, his town. Some of these imprisonments, like his unhappy relationship with his sharply intelligent wife (an excellent Juna Suleiman), are at least partially of his own making. Others, like a stubbornly closed checkport to Jerusalem, are not.
Sami’s instinct to escape immediately after his brother’s village wedding is, he insists, purely practical: he’s got to get back to work in the city before he gets fired.
- 2/3/2023
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
One of the few good things on the margins of the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that there is at least some cultural exchange between the sides, so dissonant tones critical to the official policies can be heard, at least coming from the Israeli side. One of those voices certainly belongs to filmmaker and screenwriter Eran Kolirin whose film “The Band’s Visit” (2007) dared to ask a crucial question how it is for good people at a wrong place, such was the case of the visiting Egyptian band in Israel.
Kolirin’s newest film “Let It Be Morning” is a proper Israeli-Palestinian collaboration, based on the novel by the Palestinian journalist-writer Sayed Kashua, known for the source material of the films “Private” (2004) and “A Borrowed Identity” (2014), and on the topic of the Israeli Arabs and their need to re-assess the identities they have built in the times of distress. Filmed with a...
Kolirin’s newest film “Let It Be Morning” is a proper Israeli-Palestinian collaboration, based on the novel by the Palestinian journalist-writer Sayed Kashua, known for the source material of the films “Private” (2004) and “A Borrowed Identity” (2014), and on the topic of the Israeli Arabs and their need to re-assess the identities they have built in the times of distress. Filmed with a...
- 7/27/2022
- by Marko Stojiljković
- AsianMoviePulse
Cynical takes on life as an Israeli citizen have been a staple of Nadav Lapid’s filmography long before a Ptsd-riddled Tom Mercier tried to abjure his motherland to embrace another in Synonyms (2019). Two years after that fulminating film nabbed a Golden Bear in Berlin comes Ahed’s Knee, a vitriolic tirade on the country’s creeping “loyalty” laws that’s possibly Lapid’s most desperate and lacerating to date. The film follows a Tel Aviv director in his forties who travels to a remote village in Israel’s Arava region for a screening of his latest. The man is Y (Avshalom Pollack) and on arrival he’s greeted by a young officer for the Ministry of Culture, Yahalom (Nur Fibak), who’s there to make sure the Q&a will only touch upon a list of “sanctioned” topics. All of this happened to Lapid too, who traveled to the...
- 3/24/2022
- MUBI
The Jerusalem Film Festival has named the winners from its various competition strands this year, with Juho Kuosmanen’s Finnish drama Compartment No. 6 winning Best Film in the international competition.
“Compartment No. 6 is a cross-cultural road movie – entertaining, clever, and remarkably endearing. This is free cinema, released from confinements, where an entire world exists within a cramped train car and where impossible connections are forged between people from different borders and cultures,” said the jury, which was comprised of Ari Folman, Nili Feller and Shai Goldman. A special mention was also given to Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee.
Compartment No. 6 previously shared the Grand Prix in Cannes Competition with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero.
Elsewhere, in Jerusalem’s First Feature Competition, Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta won the Gwff Award for Best First Feature.
In the the Spirit of Freedom Competition, the Cummings Award for best Feature Film went to...
“Compartment No. 6 is a cross-cultural road movie – entertaining, clever, and remarkably endearing. This is free cinema, released from confinements, where an entire world exists within a cramped train car and where impossible connections are forged between people from different borders and cultures,” said the jury, which was comprised of Ari Folman, Nili Feller and Shai Goldman. A special mention was also given to Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Flee.
Compartment No. 6 previously shared the Grand Prix in Cannes Competition with Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero.
Elsewhere, in Jerusalem’s First Feature Competition, Amalia Ulman’s El Planeta won the Gwff Award for Best First Feature.
In the the Spirit of Freedom Competition, the Cummings Award for best Feature Film went to...
- 9/2/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
In a small Arabic village in Israel, at what is meant to be the emotional crescendo of a crowded, elaborate wedding, several cages are opened to release a flight of doves into the air. Except “a waddle of doves” might be a more appropriate term, given the birds’ reluctance to spread their wings, as they tip-claw tentatively into the outside world. One of the funniest visual gags in Israeli writer-director Eran Kolirin’s “Let It Be Morning” is also its most telling: This is a farce of stasis, not frenzied activity. By holding his characters literally captive — as the village is held, absurdly but violently, under siege — Kolirin forges an actual microcosm through which to examine the social and political status of Israel’s Arab community.
The comedy that results is wry and thoughtfully observed, with its feet planted almost obstinately on the ground. While there’s a topicality to...
The comedy that results is wry and thoughtfully observed, with its feet planted almost obstinately on the ground. While there’s a topicality to...
- 7/30/2021
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
The Souvenir: Part II Cannes, Day 3: early in the festival, late in the night. I began my first dispatch wondering what the films here would have to say about the past two years, and already a few seem to raise questions that we’ve all been forced to wrestle with in these pandemic times. What is it that makes up a community? What does it mean to exist without one? In Nadav Lapid’s incendiary Ahed’s Knee, screening in the official competition, the dilemmas take place on a national scale. Avshalom Pollak plays Y, a Tel Aviv director in his forties who travels to a remote village in Israel’s Arava region for a screening of his latest work. There, he’s greeted by Yahalom (Nur Fibak), a young officer for the Ministry of Culture who’s there to make sure the Q&a will only touch upon a list of “sanctioned” topics.
- 7/10/2021
- MUBI
Relocation becomes dislocation in director Nadav Lapid’s intense, beguiling Synonyms. Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, the story follows a young Israeli man who moves to Paris in the hope of shedding his past and remolding his identity, yet instead finds his sense of self chipped away at. This is an unsettling film about nationality and how society shapes people in a way that is difficult to entirely shake off.
For Yoav (spellbinding first-time actor Tom Mercier) Paris is the antithesis of everything with which he’s been brought up. A liberal, tolerant, sexy place, France is not the militaristic nation state that Yoav takes his home country to be. “Israel will die before I die,” he exclaims, “I’ll be buried in Pere Lachaise!” He refuses to speak Hebrew and buries a bulky French dictionary under his arm as he goes about town–the...
For Yoav (spellbinding first-time actor Tom Mercier) Paris is the antithesis of everything with which he’s been brought up. A liberal, tolerant, sexy place, France is not the militaristic nation state that Yoav takes his home country to be. “Israel will die before I die,” he exclaims, “I’ll be buried in Pere Lachaise!” He refuses to speak Hebrew and buries a bulky French dictionary under his arm as he goes about town–the...
- 2/20/2019
- by Ed Frankl
- The Film Stage
Festival reveals the award winners from its 34th edition.
Scaffolding has won the best Israeli feature film prize at the 34th edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival.
The debut feature from director Matan Yair – produced by rising Israeli production outfit Green Productions – takes home a prize worth $28,000 (100,000 Ils).
Scaffolding also scooped the best actor prize for debutant Asher Lax and an honorary mention in the best cinematography category for DoP Bartosz Bieniek.
A jury consisting of Elle producer Saïd Ben Saïd, artist Yael Bartana, cinematographer Agnès Godard and Cíntia Gíl, director of film festival Doclisboa, said of the film: “For a film that combines the reality of a group of teenagers and the will of questioning cinema and the role of filmmaking. For its capacity of capturing the tenderness sometimes behind these kids’ violence, their capacity for love, their surprising imagination, in a society that places them in a marginal role forever.”
The festival...
Scaffolding has won the best Israeli feature film prize at the 34th edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival.
The debut feature from director Matan Yair – produced by rising Israeli production outfit Green Productions – takes home a prize worth $28,000 (100,000 Ils).
Scaffolding also scooped the best actor prize for debutant Asher Lax and an honorary mention in the best cinematography category for DoP Bartosz Bieniek.
A jury consisting of Elle producer Saïd Ben Saïd, artist Yael Bartana, cinematographer Agnès Godard and Cíntia Gíl, director of film festival Doclisboa, said of the film: “For a film that combines the reality of a group of teenagers and the will of questioning cinema and the role of filmmaking. For its capacity of capturing the tenderness sometimes behind these kids’ violence, their capacity for love, their surprising imagination, in a society that places them in a marginal role forever.”
The festival...
- 7/20/2017
- by tom.grater@screendaily.com (Tom Grater)
- ScreenDaily
With shades of Dreyer and Bresson, buzzed-about "Tikkun," Avishai Sivan's drama about an ultra-Orthodox man grappling with questions of faith in Jerusalem, has been acquired by Kino Lorber for Us release. Winner of top honors at the 32nd Jerusalem Film Festival, including best film, best screenplay, best cinematography (Shai Goldman) and best actor (Khalifa Natour), the film took Locarno's Special Jury Prize before making its Us premiere at Telluride. Further Us festival dates will be announced soon, before a full theatrical, VOD and home media release in 2016. Here's the synopsis: Haim-Aaron (played by Aharon Traitel) is a bright, Ultra-Orthodox religious scholar living in Jerusalem. One evening, following a self-imposed fast, Haim-Aaron collapses and loses consciousness. The paramedics announce his death, but his father (played by Khalifa Natour) takes over resuscitation efforts and, beyond all expectations, Haim-Aaron comes back to life.After the accident, try as he...
- 9/8/2015
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Thompson on Hollywood
The Golden Leopard of Locarno Film Festival’s 68th edition went to Right Now, Wrong Then by South Korea’s Hong Sang-soo.Scroll down for full list of winners
The top award comes two years after Sang-soo picked up the Leopard for Best Direction for his previous feature, Our Sunhi.
A previous winner of Locarno’s top award from South Korea was Bae Yong-kyun for Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (Dalmaga dongjogeuro gan kkadalgeun) in 1989.
Right Now, Wrong Then – which is handled internaitonally by Fine Cut - also received the Best Actor Leopard for Jung Jae-Young and a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury.
The International Jury – which included German actor Udo Kier, Israeli filmmaker Nadiv Lapid and veteran Us director Jerry Schatzberg awarded its Special Jury Prize to Avishai Sivan for Tikkun, and the Leopard for Best Direction to the veteran Polish director Andrzej Zulawski for Cosmos, his first film...
The top award comes two years after Sang-soo picked up the Leopard for Best Direction for his previous feature, Our Sunhi.
A previous winner of Locarno’s top award from South Korea was Bae Yong-kyun for Why Has Bodhi-Dharma Left for the East? (Dalmaga dongjogeuro gan kkadalgeun) in 1989.
Right Now, Wrong Then – which is handled internaitonally by Fine Cut - also received the Best Actor Leopard for Jung Jae-Young and a Special Mention from the Ecumenical Jury.
The International Jury – which included German actor Udo Kier, Israeli filmmaker Nadiv Lapid and veteran Us director Jerry Schatzberg awarded its Special Jury Prize to Avishai Sivan for Tikkun, and the Leopard for Best Direction to the veteran Polish director Andrzej Zulawski for Cosmos, his first film...
- 8/15/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Following his Jury Prize at Locarno 2011 for Policeman, Israeli director Nadav Lapid returns with The Kindergarten Teacher, a quiet story about talent, exploitation, and responsibility. Kindergarten teacher Nira (Sarit Larry) can’t quite rise over her own mediocre abilities as a poet, but when she takes five-year-old Yoav’s (Avi Shnaidman) inspired poetry as her own, her fellow poets react with jealousy and awe. Nira feels as if society at large will not support Yoav’s prodigy, so she takes it upon herself to squeeze more poems out of him—no matter the cost.Lapid and director of photography Shai Goldman shoot the film with equal amounts of distance and intimacy, landing on a distinct look that empathizes with teacher and student, but never spells out what they may be thinking. Nira’s obsessive behavior remains a spiritual pull to the boy’s Dionysian words. Yoav’s interiority may be probed through close-ups,...
- 8/15/2015
- by Zach Lewis
- MUBI
Avishai Sivan’s religious drama wins Best Israeli Feature while Hotline scoops Van Leer award for Best Documentary.Scroll down for full list of winners
Avishai Sivan’s drama Tikkun has won Best Israeli Feature at the 32nd Jerusalem Film Festival, which held its awards ceremony last night [July 16] and closes on Sunday.
Tikkun, which follows a committed Hassidic student who begins to doubt himself after a life-changing experience, won the Haggiag Award for Best Israeli Feature Film, which comes with a $31,500 (Ils 120,000) prize.
The film also won the Anat Pirchi Award for Best Script, which comes with a $2,600 (Ils 10,000) prize, the Haggiag Award for Best Actor for lead Khalifa Natour, also accompanied by a $2,600 (Ils 10,000) prize, and the Van Leer Award for Best Cinematography, which scoops $2,400 (Ils 9,000).
The film was directed by Avishai Sivan and produced by Ronen Ben-Tal, Avishai Sivan, Moshe Edery and Leon Edery of Plan B Productions.
Tikkun will also...
Avishai Sivan’s drama Tikkun has won Best Israeli Feature at the 32nd Jerusalem Film Festival, which held its awards ceremony last night [July 16] and closes on Sunday.
Tikkun, which follows a committed Hassidic student who begins to doubt himself after a life-changing experience, won the Haggiag Award for Best Israeli Feature Film, which comes with a $31,500 (Ils 120,000) prize.
The film also won the Anat Pirchi Award for Best Script, which comes with a $2,600 (Ils 10,000) prize, the Haggiag Award for Best Actor for lead Khalifa Natour, also accompanied by a $2,600 (Ils 10,000) prize, and the Van Leer Award for Best Cinematography, which scoops $2,400 (Ils 9,000).
The film was directed by Avishai Sivan and produced by Ronen Ben-Tal, Avishai Sivan, Moshe Edery and Leon Edery of Plan B Productions.
Tikkun will also...
- 7/17/2015
- ScreenDaily
PARK CITY -- A pulsating look from the front lines during last year's Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, "5 Days" should enthrall viewers interested in the Israel-Palestinian conflicts, as well as those generally interested in prescriptive conflict resolution.
"5 Days" will thrive at film festivals and should be a smart draw on the Sundance Channel.
In this gripping document, we follow the removal of 8,000 settlers from their Gaza dwellings by the Israeli army. What was feared would be a catastrophe of bloodletting turns into a triumph of restraint. Director Yoav Shamir evenly captures the endgame scenario orchestrated by both sides and shows succinctly how armed violence was avoided.
With multiple camera crews, including a unit that followed Gen. Dan Harel, chief of the Southern Command, "5 Days" is a ranging, provocative insight into the volatile dynamics of this historic mission. Harel, we see, is a commanding but compassionate leader who realized that the five days would proceed on a certain course. Under his command, the Israeli soldiers showed compassion and civil fortitude as things inexorably climaxed toward the fifth day, when the most entrenched and resistant would be confronted and removed.
Told with intelligence and multiple perspectives, "5 Days" provokes one to examine why all intractable conflicts can't be solved with such honor and delicacy.
Technical contributions are first rate, including taut editing from Arik Lahav-Leibovitz and probing camerawork from the legion of cinematographers.
5 DAYS
Keshet, IDFA Documentary, Sundance Channel and Profile Prods.
Credits:
Director: Yoav Shamir
Producer: Moshe Levinson
Directors of photography: Yoav Shamir, Mahmoud Albaied, Yossi Aviram, Shai Goldman, Eytan Harris, Nadav Lapid, Gil Mezuman, Amit Shalev, Claudio Steinberg, Alon Zingman
Music: Ophir Leibovitch
Editor: Arik Lahav-Leibovitz
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 minutes...
"5 Days" will thrive at film festivals and should be a smart draw on the Sundance Channel.
In this gripping document, we follow the removal of 8,000 settlers from their Gaza dwellings by the Israeli army. What was feared would be a catastrophe of bloodletting turns into a triumph of restraint. Director Yoav Shamir evenly captures the endgame scenario orchestrated by both sides and shows succinctly how armed violence was avoided.
With multiple camera crews, including a unit that followed Gen. Dan Harel, chief of the Southern Command, "5 Days" is a ranging, provocative insight into the volatile dynamics of this historic mission. Harel, we see, is a commanding but compassionate leader who realized that the five days would proceed on a certain course. Under his command, the Israeli soldiers showed compassion and civil fortitude as things inexorably climaxed toward the fifth day, when the most entrenched and resistant would be confronted and removed.
Told with intelligence and multiple perspectives, "5 Days" provokes one to examine why all intractable conflicts can't be solved with such honor and delicacy.
Technical contributions are first rate, including taut editing from Arik Lahav-Leibovitz and probing camerawork from the legion of cinematographers.
5 DAYS
Keshet, IDFA Documentary, Sundance Channel and Profile Prods.
Credits:
Director: Yoav Shamir
Producer: Moshe Levinson
Directors of photography: Yoav Shamir, Mahmoud Albaied, Yossi Aviram, Shai Goldman, Eytan Harris, Nadav Lapid, Gil Mezuman, Amit Shalev, Claudio Steinberg, Alon Zingman
Music: Ophir Leibovitch
Editor: Arik Lahav-Leibovitz
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 minutes...
- 1/30/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
PARK CITY -- A pulsating look from the front lines during the August 2005 Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip, "5 Days" should enthrall viewers interested in the Israel-Palestinian conflicts, as well as those generally interested in prescriptive conflict resolution.
"5 Days" will thrive at film festivals, and should be a smart draw on the Sundance Channel.
In this gripping document, we follow the removal of 8,000 settlers from their Gaza dwellings by the Israeli army. What was feared would be a catastrophe of bloodletting turns into a triumph of restraint. Director Yoav Shamir evenly captures the endgame scenario orchestrated by both sides and shows succinctly how armed violence was avoided.
With multiple camera crews, including a unit which followed General Dan Harel, chief of the Southern Command, "5 Days" is a ranging, provocative insight into the volatile dynamics of this historic mission. General Dan Harel, we see, is a commanding but compassionate leader who realized that the five-days would proceed on a certain course. Under his command, the Israeli soldiers showed compassion and civil fortitude as things inexorably climaxed toward the fifth day, when the most entrenched and resistant would be confronted and removed.
Told with intelligence and multiple perspectives, "5 Days" provokes one to examine why all intractable conflicts can't be solved with such honor and delicacy.
Technical contributions are first rate: taut editing from Arik Lahav-Leibovitz and probing camera work from the legion of cinematographers.
5 DAYS
Keshet
idfa Documentary
Sundance Channel
Profile Prods. Presents
Credits:
Director: Yoav Shamir
Producer: Moshe Levinson
Directors
of photography: Yoav Shamir, Mahmoud Albaied, Yossi Aviram, Shai Goldman, Eytan Harris, Nadav Lapid, Gil Mezuman, Amit Shalev, Claudio Steinberg, Alon Zingman
Music: Ophir Leibovitch
Editor: Arik Lahav-Leibovitz
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 minutes...
"5 Days" will thrive at film festivals, and should be a smart draw on the Sundance Channel.
In this gripping document, we follow the removal of 8,000 settlers from their Gaza dwellings by the Israeli army. What was feared would be a catastrophe of bloodletting turns into a triumph of restraint. Director Yoav Shamir evenly captures the endgame scenario orchestrated by both sides and shows succinctly how armed violence was avoided.
With multiple camera crews, including a unit which followed General Dan Harel, chief of the Southern Command, "5 Days" is a ranging, provocative insight into the volatile dynamics of this historic mission. General Dan Harel, we see, is a commanding but compassionate leader who realized that the five-days would proceed on a certain course. Under his command, the Israeli soldiers showed compassion and civil fortitude as things inexorably climaxed toward the fifth day, when the most entrenched and resistant would be confronted and removed.
Told with intelligence and multiple perspectives, "5 Days" provokes one to examine why all intractable conflicts can't be solved with such honor and delicacy.
Technical contributions are first rate: taut editing from Arik Lahav-Leibovitz and probing camera work from the legion of cinematographers.
5 DAYS
Keshet
idfa Documentary
Sundance Channel
Profile Prods. Presents
Credits:
Director: Yoav Shamir
Producer: Moshe Levinson
Directors
of photography: Yoav Shamir, Mahmoud Albaied, Yossi Aviram, Shai Goldman, Eytan Harris, Nadav Lapid, Gil Mezuman, Amit Shalev, Claudio Steinberg, Alon Zingman
Music: Ophir Leibovitch
Editor: Arik Lahav-Leibovitz
No MPAA rating
Running time -- 94 minutes...
- 1/23/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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